The Vanished Messenger eBook

The man retreated silently. The woman sat down
upon a stool and waited. Gerald sat opposite
to her, the battered dressing-case upon his knees.
Between them was stretched the body of the unconscious
man.

“Are you used to prayer, young sir?” the
woman asked.

Gerald shook his head, and the woman did not pursue
the subject. Only once her eyes were half closed
and her words drifted across the room.

“The Lord have mercy on this man, a sinner!”

CHAPTER IV

“My advice to you, sir, is to chuck it!”

Gerald turned towards the chauffeur by whose side
he was seated a little stiffly, for his limbs were
numbed with the cold and exhaustion. The morning
had broken with a grey and uncertain light. A
vaporous veil of mist seemed to have taken the place
of the darkness. Even from the top of the hill
where the car had come to a standstill, there was
little to be seen.

“We must have come forty miles already,”
the chauffeur continued, “what with going out
of our way all the time because of the broken bridges.
I’m pretty well frozen through, and as for him,”
he added, jerking his thumb across his shoulder, “it
seems to me you’re taking a bit of a risk.”

“The doctor said he would remain in exactly
the same condition for twenty-four hours,” Gerald
declared.

“Yes, but he didn’t say anything about
shaking him up over forty miles of rough road,”
the other protested. “You’ll excuse
me, sir,” he continued, in a slightly changed
tone; “it isn’t my business, of course,
but I’m fairly done. It don’t seem
reasonable to stick at it like this. There’s
Holt village not a mile away, and a comfortable inn
and a fire waiting. I thought that was as far
as you wanted to come. We might lie up there
for a few hours, at any rate.”

His passenger slipped down from his place, and, lifting
the rug, peered into the tonneau of the car, over
which they had tied a hood. To all appearance,
the condition of the man who lay there was unchanged.
There was a slightly added blueness about the lips
but his breathing was still perceptible. It
seemed even a little stronger. Gerald resumed
his seat.

“It isn’t worth while to stay at Holt,”
he said quietly. “We are scarcely seven
miles from home now. Sit still for a few minutes
and get your wind.”